Condoms, 'si'; affordable MRT and anti-dengue drugs, 'no!'

CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Herman Tiu Laurel
9/12-14/2011



I can practically hear them chant that line these days. I can practically see them make a case for it wherever they go.

Administration allies cum apologists-- from “evil” society personalities like Riza Hontiveros and Walden Bello to NGOs like the Philippine Legislators’ Committee for Population and Development (PLCPD), whose offices are questionably located in Congress and enjoy easy access to formidable foreign financial resources, not to mention alliances with the local conglomerate of NGOs, foremost of which is the infamous CodeNGO--all demand that government subsidizes condoms for the poor and underprivileged.

Not once will you hear them call for any subsidy for free medicines or even life-saving hospitalization for the crying thousands who regularly languish in public or private hospitals.

PeNoy and Mar
All these, in spite of the fact that PeNoy and Mar Roxas are now set to remove what they would like the public to believe are government “subsidies” for MRT/LRT commuting students, blue and white collar workers, professionals, managers, and other citizens.

I am, of course, enraged.

And I get even more enraged whenever I hear Roxas on radio aggressively trying to convince Filipino audiences that the fares being shelled out by MRT/LRT commuters are unfair to the rest of the non-NCR taxpaying public -- like the people of the provinces, or the farmers in the bukid, and fishermen out at sea -- who do not use the mass transit system.

As fuel meets my rage, all I can say to him is: “P-I mo! Your disingenuous justifications are insulting to the public’s intelligence.”

Who subsidizes?
Let me make this clear: MRT/LRT commuters are NOT being subsidized.

It is the MRT/LRT commuters and Filipino taxpayers who have long subsidized the elite colleagues of Mar Roxas, namely, the Roxas family’s fellow oligarchs, the Sobrepeñas, Ayalas, Agustines, et al., who carted away billions in sovereign guarantee-covered profits even before the railway system (in this case, the MRT) started running.

Here’s the story:

The original consortium that had Ayala Land, Anglo-Philippine Holdings, Fil-Estate, Ramcar, and Greenfield Development Corp. as stakeholders later sold its interests in the secondary market to such buyers as Goldman Sachs and other private creditor-banks, including the Philippine Bank of Communications, Bank of Commerce, and United Coconut Planters Bank.

Last year, the Land Bank and the Development Bank of the Philippines bought back the commuter train operations to relieve government of cases over unpaid arrears filed by foreign shareholders in Washington and Singapore -- which cases stemmed from the “failure” of government to deliver the 15-percent guaranteed rate of return of investment of the private operator (or the consortium).

Reverse Privatization
While the government gave the assurance that the buy-out was not a “reverse privatization,” it should make everyone wonder what is indeed so bad about “reverse privatization,” especially when this would mean that no one -- most of all, those greedy corporations -- will be allowed to profit from commuters’ fares.

At any rate, let us examine the things that government is reportedly losing on against annual revenues of $39.56 million: $130 million per year for equity rental payments; maintenance rental payments, and operating and administrative costs for the elevated railway.

But just what are “equity payments” if not mere financial costs incurred by those sovereign guarantees, making up the biggest portion at $130 million?

Then, what on earth are maintenance rental payments?

Shouldn’t maintenance be part of the operating cost?

Deluge of Lies
Apparently, these were also the issues raised by one consumer advocacy group, whose name I have tried to get from the Department of Transportation and Communication but no one would give.

It was told by representatives of MRT management that the MRT actually breaks-even on operations; but the financial costs are the ones draining its viability.

If PeNoy and Mar Roxas really wanted to do good for the people, they should’ve investigated these issues first.

But with their deluge of lies, various newspaper reports even give this account: “Finance officials said another option if government fails to privatize MRT 3 is to raise fares.

Based on a government study presented by the DBP, fares should be increased from an average rate of P12.50 to P60.50 to make MRT 3 profitable.”

A Major Debacle
But why should the MRT be profitable when it is a public utility and service intended to help the people boost their economic efficiency and productivity?

Certainly, no other major commuter group in the entire nation has to travel distances of 15 to 50 kms everyday just to get from home to work (or school) and back.

This is in stark contrast to, say, a large provincial capital where it is normal for home and work to be just one ride (or a few kilometers) away.

With the kind of fare increase PeNoy and Roxas are bracing the public for, commuters are to face a major debacle.

And yet, the so-called “subsidy” this administration wants to withhold only amounts to some P7 billion as against the subsidies built into the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that already amount to a minimum of P10 billion.

They’re at it Again
But then, as the RH bill “promotors” won’t let the issue rest, they definitely are at it again.

Take the case of Walden Bello’s hypochondriac and hyperbolic “Rwanda in the Pacific,” which is filled with nothing but fear-mongering on how the growing Philippine population can lead to a Rwandan genocide -- even misusing the respected anthropologist Jared Diamond’s studies to fit a Rwandan parallel to a totally different Philippine scene.

It seems the need to justify these advocates’ foreign funding is really primordial, over-riding even simple common sense.

Had they not chosen to call for subsidizing the wrong things, such as condoms and mendicancy, and put the country’s resources into making people truly productive, instead of handing dole-outs or “conditional cash transfers” to the tune of P25 billion (and rising to P35 billion) that are so much more than the P7 billion in commuters’ support, we just might listen to them.

But then, their inanity just craves for the blessings of their foreign benefactors.

And they haven’t even bothered to check the plight of weeping mothers whose children have died of dengue for lack of money for medicines.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8 on “Science and Engineering vs. 9/11 Lies”; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)